A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

same path.
Mortals betrayed every gift granted them. They betrayed
the giver. They betrayed their own promises. Their gods,
their ancestors, their children – everywhere, betrayal.
    The great forests of Kharkanas had been cut down; the
squalid dying islands of growth left behind had each one
fallen to fire or blight. The rich soils washed down into the
rivers. The flesh of the land was stripped back to reveal
bedrock bones. And hunger stalked the children. Mothers
wailed, fathers tried on hardened masks of resolve, but
before any of this both had looked out upon the ravaged
world with affronted disbelief – someone's to blame,
someone always is, but by the Abyss, do not look at me !
    But there was nowhere else to look. Mother Dark had
turned away. She had left them to fates of their own devising,
and in so doing, she had taken away their privilege of
blaming someone else. Such was a godless world.
    One might think, then, that a people would rise to fullest
height, stand proud, and accept the notion of potential
culpability for each decision made or not made. Yes, that
would be nice. That would be something to behold, to feed
riotous optimism. But such a moment, such stature, never
came. Enlightened ages belonged to the past or waited for
the future. Such ages acquired the gloss of iconic myth,
reduced to abstractions. The present world was real, filled
with the grit of reality and compromise. People did not
stand tall. They ducked.
    There was no one about with whom Endest Silann could
discuss all this. No one who might – just might – understand
the significance of what he was thinking.
    Rush headlong. Things are happening. Standing stones
topple one against another and on and on. Tidal surges lift
ever higher. Smoke and screams and violence and suffering.
Victims piled in heaps like the plunder of cannibals. This is
the meat of glee, the present made breathless, impatience
burning like acid. Who has time to comprehend?
    Endest Silann stood atop the lesser tower of the keep.
He held out one hand, knuckles to the earth, as black rain
pooled in the cup of his palm.
    Was the truth as miserable as it seemed?
    Did it all demand that one figure, one solitary figure,
rise to stand tall? To face that litany of destruction, the
brutality of history, the lie of progress, the desecration of a
home once sacred, precious beyond imagining? One figure?
Alone?
    Is his own burden not enough? Why must he carry ours?
Why have we done this to him? Why, because it's easier that
way, and we so cherish the easy paths, do we not? The least of
effort defines our virtues. Trouble us not, for we dislike being
troubled.
    The children are hungry. The forests are dead, the rivers
poisoned. Calamity descends again and again. Diseases flower
like mushrooms on corpses. And soon we will war over what's
left. As we did in Kharkanas.
    He will take this burden, but what does that mean? That we
are freed to stay unchanging? Freed to continue doing nothing?
    The black water overflowed the cup, spilled down to
become rain once more.
    Even the High Priestess did not understand. Not all of it,
no. She saw this as a single, desperate gambit, a cast of the
knuckles on which rode everything. But if it failed, well,
there'd be another game. New players, the same old tired
rules. The wealth wagered never lost its value, did it? The
heap of golden coins will not crumble. It will only grow
bigger yet.
    Then, if the players come and go, while the rules never
change, does not that heap in fact command the game? Would
you bow to this god of gold? This insensate illusion of value?
    Bow, then. Press forehead to the hard floor. But when it all
goes wrong, show me no affronted disbelief.
    Yes, Anomander Rake would take that burden, and
carry it into a new world. But he would offer no absolution.
He would deliver but one gift – an undeserved one – and
that was time.
    The most precious privilege of all. And what, pray tell,
shall we do with it?
    Off to his left, surmounting a much higher tower, a
dragon fixed slitted eyes upon a decrepit camp beyond the
veil of Night. No rain could blind it, no excuse could brave
its unwavering regard. Silanah watched. And waited.
    But the waiting was almost over.
    Rush then, to this feast. Rush, ye hungry ones, to the
meat of glee.
    The wall had never been much to begin with. Dismantled
in places, unfinished in others. It would never have withstood
a siege for any length of time. Despite its execrable
condition, the breach made by